Care at Home Post Hospital
Why is post-operative care important?
Post-surgery, you are prone to infections and surgery-related complications, such as bleeding at the surgical site, the formation of blood clots, and even respiratory problems.
Doctors recommend various measures as post-surgical care depending on your condition, the type of surgery you’ve undergone, and how successful the surgery was. It begins right after your surgery and its period may vary, based on your doctor’s advice and the nature of your recovery.
Post-surgical care involves two major facets to it:
- Medical care (addressed to by a professionally trained nurse)
- Assistance with activities of daily living (carried out by the nursing attendant(s)/nursing aide(s), under the supervision of a professional nurse)
So the hierarchy created is thus: The nursing attendant reports to a professional nurse who in turn reports to the patient’s physician/surgeon.
Postoperative care by Home Health Nurses
Post-surgical care needs to continue in a structured manner once the patient is back home. Depending upon the technicality of care to be administered, nurses and nursing attendants at home play a very crucial role in the post-surgery recovery phase.
Immediately after a patient is brought home, a nurse’s roles, among others, may entail the following tasks, to ensure the patient’s quick recovery:
-Postoperative dressing and wound management
-Stitch removal and drain care
-Administering injections
-Blood transfusions
-Home IV antibiotic therapy
-Pain management
-Bed Sore Care
-Chemo port flushing
-Diet monitoring and nutritional counseling
-Patient education and family counseling